Kate,” he said as she climbed out of bed. He watched her brush her teeth in the small bathroom off of the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the tub while she brushed her hair and pulled it into a ponytail.
“What are we doing today?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t answer.
He followed her as she spent the morning and part of the early afternoon cleaning up after the break-in. She righted a knocked-over lamp, and put papers that had been strewn on the floor into a desk drawer. While she was at it, she dusted the furniture and organized her shelves. At lunch, she walked into the kitchen and ate a blueberry yogurt. He peered into her fridge. Yogurt, bottled water, wilted celery. He guessed she didn’t cook much. Then he realized he wasn’t hungry. So aside from not sleeping, that meant he didn’t eat in Neither Here Nor There. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had anything to drink since he got there, either.
The phone rang.
“Hi, Mallory,” Kate said when she picked up the receiver, after glancing at Caller ID.
From what he could figure out from only one side of the conversation, Mallory had apparently tried reaching Kate at the office. Kate blurted out about her now-ex-boyfriend, and Mallory then got a blow-by-blow of the entire sordid affair. The break-in. The missing dog. Kate curled her legs under her as she sat in a club chair next to the telephone. Julian flopped on the couch and waited. Women sure could talk on the phone for a long time.
After Kate hung up, the super for the building came and changed the locks. He said he was letting the other tenants know about the break-in, too.
Locks changed, place straightened up, next she made fliers of her missing dog. She printed them out on her computer. While she was in the photo files on her computer, he got a mini-slideshow of her life. She poised her finger on the mouse, considering deleting all the David ones. She didn’t. Then there were the Leslie JPEGs. Leslie and Kate at a bar, looking like they were having a blast. Leslie and Kate at some book signing. Leslie and Kate lying on a beach somewhere. Bikini shots. He liked those.
“She’s a bitch, Kate.”
Still Kate stared at the screen.
So he began talking incessantly. “Delete her. Exorcize her from your life.”
He watched as Kate’s index finger trembled slightly on the mouse. He leaned closer to her face. “Delete the bitch.”
Her face turned resolute. She clicked…and Leslie was gone. Poof. Off Kate’s computer.
“Holy shit, I can do it,” he said. “You can hear me. I know you can.”
Kate stood and walked to the window. The day had meandered toward early evening. Julian looked at her profile as she gazed down on the street. He tried to follow her line of sight, and realized she was staring at couples strolling near the park, hand in hand under the lampposts. A drag queen strutted by in a halter top and tight jeans, a piercing in her belly button. She wasn’t, Julian mused, an attractive drag queen. Her hands were manly and her face was, well…like a guy with a bad wig. Suddenly, she waved at someone coming in the opposite direction. She flew at a guy in jeans, flip-flops and a T-shirt, and next thing Julian knew, the two of them were making out on the corner.
Kate sighed. “Even the trannies have love.”
“Worse, even the ugly trannies have love. Time to get you out of this apartment.”
CHAPTER FIVE
TIME TO GET YOU OUTof this apartment, Kate thought to herself. Sitting here crying isn’t helping matters. She walked to her bedroom and opened her closet doors.
Her closet was just a few inches short of a walk-in—a rarity in Manhattan. The rest of the apartment was small, just shy of 550 square feet. Still, she was beyond lucky to have it. Her father had always been so cautious and insured himself through the New York Fire Department. Plus the settlement she and her mother received after his death. And then the money her grandfather on her mother’s side left her. She knew it was astounding that she had this place at all at her age, in this city. That she owned it—albeit with a hefty mortgage was even more astounding. She would have bought it for this closet alone—let alone the proximity to the park.
She began pushing aside shirts. No, no, no, they’re all wrong.
She frowned. What, exactly, was wrong with her clothes? She had never particularly cared. A jeans and T-shirt gal, she had been a tomboy growing up. Softball, soccer, field hockey. Her dad came to as many games as he could. Now, working in Manhattan, she wore pantsuits in black. Black. Black. Grey. Adventurous was the camel-colored one.
None of this stuff is sexy. You’ve got a great body, you need to show it off a little. Get playful.
She rolled her eyes and searched deeper into her closet, passing by white blouses. While she used to believe you couldn’t go wrong with a fitted white blouse, nothing dangling from the multitude of hangers seemed right. Then, way near the back, a low V-neck, fitted T-shirt with a funky Asian graphic on it. She never thought the shirt was “her,” but it had been a gift when her cousin Mallory went to Hong Kong on business. Mal was always the wild cousin, sneaking off at family gatherings to smoke cigarettes when they were fifteen, running off to Paris for six months after college to drink wine, eat cheese and make love with sexy European men—including an Italian soccer star.
Kate pulled the shirt out of the closet and held it up. With a pair of black jeans, it might be what she was looking for. Not that she knew what it was she was going to do beyond getting out into the fresh night air, away from her apartment. It was unsettling to her that someone had broken in. The super had come to change the lock already, but still, she was creeped out.
She pulled on the top and dug out a pair of True Religion jeans that fit her pretty well. She padded, barefoot, to the bathroom door, on which hung a full-length mirror.
There you go, Kate. Own it. You’re fuckable.
“Jesus!” she said aloud. “Where the hell did that come from? Too much wine yesterday.”
She brushed her teeth and, uncharacteristically, dabbed some lip gloss on her lips. She stared into the mirror. Her eyes were still puffy, so she shrugged and added concealer and then two coats of mascara.
“That’s better,” she said and smiled.
Walking through her apartment, she grabbed her keys, and tucked them and three twenties into her pocket, grabbed some fliers and some tape, and headed out the door.
Even on the way down the stairs, she had no real idea of where she was going, an aimless feeling completely unfamiliar to her. She taped some fliers in the laundry room and next to the mailboxes, and then by the stairwell. Then she burst through the building’s front door like a second-grader on the first day of summer, and a warm breeze stroked her face. It almost felt like a man’s fingers gently touching her. Feeling unexpectedly buoyed, she set off toward her favorite pizzeria to grab a slice and a Diet Coke.
At the corner, she headed east to Gino’s, passing countless NYU students in T-shirts and shorts. Even in summer, the university had plenty of students filling the sidewalks and pizza places and bars of Greenwich Village. Gino’s was a favorite haunt, and the place stayed open nearly twenty-four hours, taking advantage of late-night student munchies. She walked in, the bell on the glass door tinkling slightly. The scent of fresh dough and tomato sauce caused her stomach to remind her that all she’d consumed in the last twenty-fours was yogurt and wine.
“Hey, Carlos,” she said to the owner. He had long ago explained to her he bought the place from Gino and kept the name. “Two slices. Burn ’em. And a Diet Coke.” She sat down at the long bar.
Carlos, of the smoldering dark looks, black eyes and rock-star bald head and earring, stared at her.
“What’d you do, Kate-Baby?”
“Hmm?” she asked.
“What’d you do? To your face? New haircut? Something.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his muscular chest.